The first flagship Elephant Parade experience center is open in Chiangmai. Here you’ll get to see some of the full size Elephant Parade statues from cities around the world and our collection of replicas. But there is much more. On the second floor you get to learn about Asian elephants and the work The Asian Elephant Foundation are doing to save these fantastic animals. On the third floor you can paint your own Elephant Parade replica elephant and maybe become one of the exhibition artists because of your beautiful work and talent!

So, when visiting Thailand or the neighbouring countries, stop in at Elephant Parade House.

On Thursday Morning two male elephants fought to the death at a popular Elephant Park in Na-Jomtien as workers and tourists looked on, powerless to stop the two large mammals who were reportedly fighting over a female elephant who was ready to mate.

The fight was between a 30 year old elephant named as “Pai Noi”, who had been purchased from a park in Surin Province for the purpose of mating with the female elephant at the Khao Chi Chan Elephant Park in Na-Jomtien, and “Pai Sombong” aged 69, who transports tourists around the park on a daily basis.

As the younger elephant broke free from chains in the morning as staff prepared the mammals for the day ahead, the fight began and workers were powerless to stop them and could only ensure that tourists were kept well-away from the battle which took place.

The older elephant sustained a fatal wound to the stomach which exposed his intestines. “Pai Sombong” collapsed and later in the morning, died. “Pai Noi” was shot with a tranquilizer dart and chained to a tree before regaining consciousness.

The Chief of Sattahip District visited the park to investigate the incident and to ensure that a similar deadly confrontation does not take place, which could put the lives of tourists in danger.

He also witnessed a funeral service for the 69 year old elephant whose tusks were removed, not to be sold but to be kept by the park. It is considered good luck to keep the tusks of an elderly elephant who dies.

The park continues to operate as normal and we have been told that the younger elephant will be returned to Surin Province where it was purchased from.

Little more than 3ft tall and naturally curious, they are the undisputed stars of the scores of elephant camps created in the forests of Thailand to offer tourists the opportunity to get close to the world’s largest land animals.

For many of the 850,000 Britons who go on holiday to Thailand every year, a trip to an elephant park is an unmissable part of their trip.

While some are doing good work, the vast majority of elephant camps are commercial enterprises, making money from tourists keen to have their photos taken with the young ones, bathing with the elephants or riding them, or watching them paint.

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Some camps even dress up their elephants and have them perform unnatural and demeaning tricks, all in the name of entertainment.

But beyond the happy smiles of tourists posing with elephants, there is a hidden dark reality, of murder, smuggling and torture for the calves on show.

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The booming Thai tourist industry is fuelling a huge illegal trade in baby elephants that are taken from the wild in Burma, beaten, starved and tortured to break their spirit before being paraded in front of fee-paying holidaymakers.

The reports we have recently received indicate that at least 50 to 100 elephant calves are still being taken from the forests of Burma every year to supply the tourist camps.
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EVEN WORSE, it is estimated that for every calf smuggled across the country’s 1,200-mile border with Thailand, up to FIVE adult female and adolescent elephants from the calf’s immediate family group are gunned down in cold blood.

“A master mahout becomes one with his elephant,” we are told in this charming novel for middle-grade readers.

“He is brother and sister, mother and father, and son and daughter to his elephant. He lives, eats and sleeps with his elephant. He feeds it from his table, and bathes with it in the river. The mahout becomes an elephant, and the elephant becomes a mahout. The two are inseparable. But just as there are all kinds of elephants, so, too, there are all kinds of mahouts.”

Ten-year-old Tua (Thai for “Peanut”) recognizes immediately that the mahouts she sees on a city street with a lovely young elephant are no good. She follows them to their camp, waits until they drink themselves unconscious, then slips off the elephant’s chain. And this is how she finds herself on the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand, “in the company of a fugitive elephant.”

So begins the adventure in “Tua and the Elephant,” by R. P. Harris and illustrated by Taeeun Yoo. Tua’s story follows one of the great traditions of children’s literature by dispensing quickly with potentially pesky parents. Tua doesn’t appear to have a father, and her mother, doting but overwhelmed, leaves for an evening shift at work within a couple of pages. Left to her own devices, Tua dashes off to Chiang Mai’s popular Night Market, where familiar and loving people ensure Tua is well fed, entertained and parented in absentia.

Harris’s description of the Night Market is an early high point among many providing a glimpse into the tastes, sights and sounds of Thailand.